


Memories of a Cheese and Apple Pie

by Azpou



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Comfort, Conversations, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-05-17
Updated: 2002-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-10 20:41:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/104051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azpou/pseuds/Azpou
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sleepless Teal'c meets an equally sleepless Jack in the middle of the night. Contains mild spoilers for 'Rite of Passage'.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Memories of a Cheese and Apple Pie

Teal'c could not bring himself to meditate. His symbiote required it, but he was reluctant to sink so completely into his own thoughts. He was glad that Cassandra would be well once again, but he could not help but think of his own son. He missed Ry'ac terribly.

He stalked the halls of the SGC restlessly, searching for an escape even though he was forbidden to leave the mountain without an escort. He briefly considered asking General Hammond to grant him leave to visit his family, but dismissed it; SG-1 had much work to do, and it was his duty to assist.

Entirely by chance, he stumbled upon O'Neill on sublevel nineteen.

"Hey, Teal'c."

"O'Neill," he responded, nodding a greeting.

His friend flashed him a wry, wistful half-smile. "You couldn't sleep either, huh?"

Teal'c declined to answer, finding the question a little too personal for the dead of night, although he had no doubt that O'Neill already knew that, no, he could not sleep, and that yes, he could not sleep because he was consumed with thoughts of his family.

O'Neill seemed tired, his skin pale and his shoulders slumped in weariness, his eyes shadowed and radiating bitterness.

"Would you care to join me in the commissary?" Teal'c offered impulsively, almost certain he knew which memories and feelings troubled his brother - memories and feelings not unlike his own. "I feel the need for . . . pie."

O'Neill shrugged his weary shoulders and smiled his wry and wistful half-smile. "Sure. Why not?"

Why not, indeed, Teal'c thought, nodding once again.

They walked to the commissary in companionable silence. Teal'c found himself soothed by O'Neill's presence at his side, and he hoped his friend felt the same. It was easy to find comfort in the silence, eased by the friendship that crackled between them. It was often so, and Teal'c felt privileged to have found such a friend.

The commissary was empty when they arrived, but O'Neill walked into the kitchen and helped himself to the provisions regardless. Two slices of apple pie with cream were swiftly delivered to the table in the farthest corner of the room, while Teal'c busied himself with procuring the cutlery.

Tau'ri rituals during the consumption of food still intrigued him, even after all these years. On Chulak food was a resource to be utilised like any other. It was not until he had arrived on Earth that Teal'c had learned to savour it as a pleasure in its own right . . . and the friendships that could be formed and honed over a slice of hot apple pie.

O'Neill sat at the table with his back to the door, granting Teal'c the opportunity to survey the room as they ate. They would alternate positions every time they dined together, and it was Teal'c's turn to be afforded the observation point. It was another ritual they shared, he and O'Neill, although O'Neill called it paranoia - to consider that danger might strike at the heart of the SGC at any given moment. As familiar with the history of the SGC as he was, Teal'c merely called it prudence.

He sat, and began to carefully excavate the apple from the pastry. He mixed it into the cream that swirled around the bowl, before tucking into the pastry with a long-suffering grimace. Pastry was a necessary evil of pie consumption. He liked the thick and gooey apple far more.

O'Neill had chopped his pie into little pieces and was pushing them around with his spoon, making sure it was completely soaked with cream. Teal'c was used to this ritual, too. Watching O'Neill eat pie was akin to observing Daniel Jackson as he removed an artefact from the ground. Energy and concentration was focused so utterly upon one point that the world shrunk to the size of the artefact - or slice of pie - in question.

"It needs cheese," O'Neill suddenly announced.

Teal'c could feel an eyebrow rising. O'Neill had not mentioned that cheese and apple pie were compatible tastes and textures. He considered his thick and gooey apple, paled and sweetened by cream, and tried to imagine it spread onto a slice of cheese. He could not.

"My mom used to put a slice of cheese on top of apple pie," O'Neill explained.

Teal'c chewed thoughtfully on the last of his pastry, the dry and unappetising crust, which he always ate out of a sense of obligation to O'Neill, the master of pie. Not that Teal'c would ever tell O'Neill that he considered him a master of anything.

"I see."

"Really?"

"No."

Amusement flared briefly in O'Neill's eyes. "You should try it. It's the sweet and the bitter mixed together. Cheese really makes an apple pie."

"What happens to the pastry?" Teal'c wondered aloud, before spooning sweet apple and cream into his mouth and swallowing luxuriously. Why contaminate such sweetness with cheese? Surely it would make pastry unpleasantly dry?

"It's the fruit you've got to think about. That's the dominant taste in apple pie."

"I see," Teal'c repeated, and swallowed a further half spoonful of apple and cream, because he wanted to savour it and make it last. Cream and apple was one of the pleasures in his life.

"Really?"

"Yes. Can we try it now?"

O'Neill snorted. "I'd rather lick a dog's ass than touch the commissary cheese. No, you need real cheese for apple pie. Not those bright orange floppy slices that come in plastic and taste like plastic. That stuff's only good for baked potatoes."

Teal'c smiled at the colourful denial and O'Neill's culinary expertise. Which was to say that O'Neill wasn't an expert at all, and was a man of simple tastes. Teal'c smiled around his spoon as O'Neill shovelled another piece of pie into his mouth and swallowed with relish.

"You have not mentioned your mother prior to this evening," Teal'c observed, after a full two minutes of silent eating. His apple was almost gone, he noted with regret. Still, O'Neill had only two pieces of pie left to consume, so he was not alone in his desperate strait.

"Yeah, well," O'Neill said after swallowing again. "Guess I've been thinking about family a lot today."

Teal'c eyed his friend knowingly. He nodded his understanding, and did not speak. Words were inappropriate. Nor were they needed, for it occurred to Teal'c that O'Neill already appeared more at ease than when they met in the corridor, and that their discussion may have been more than a mere analysis of the potential merits of cheese with apple pie.

They finished their pie quickly, much to Teal'c's chagrin. He looked longingly at the kitchen, but O'Neill reluctantly shook his head.

"Don't even think about it. Chef'll have my ass if he finds out I've been stealing food again."

Teal'c smirked, and led the way out into the corridor, O'Neill trailing at his side like an excitable puppy. He talked eagerly of their next mission, outlining his plans and his desire to avoid still more of Daniel Jackson's lectures. Teal'c knew O'Neill was not a stupid man, and could understand his dislike of scholarly pursuits only too well. Daniel Jackson's interests had intrigued him, until he and O'Neill had been caught in the time device of the Ancients. Working on the same translations day after day, and listening to the same lectures, had been testing. In the extreme.

O'Neill was still chattering happily when they reached Teal'c's quarters, but he fell silent and paused when Teal'c made to go inside. There was gratitude in his face, and Teal'c watched him curiously as he struggled to find words to express his thanks.

"There is no need, O'Neill," Teal'c finally said, taking pity on him.

His friend looked momentarily stricken, before his face fell back into its normal blandness. Teal'c accepted the touch to his shoulder without objection, and O'Neill nodded slowly.

"I will see you tomorrow, at the briefing."

"Oh, sure," O'Neill said, smiling, and it was neither wry nor wistful. "You bet."

Teal'c inclined his head, and stood still outside his quarters until O'Neill had disappeared around a corner. Then he opened the door and went inside, and set about lighting his candles in preparation for kel'no'reem. He would need the rest, if O'Neill's description of their mission had been any indication. Not that he believed every word O'Neill said, but it did not hurt to be prepared.

He sat down and crossed his legs, thinking of Ry'ac, and Drey'auc, and Master Bra'tac . . . and he wondered what they would think of cheese with apple pie.


End file.
